Six Years!

This Friday just gone, the 24th April was the Blog’s Birthday. It’s six years since I made the first blog post after fleeing from the toxic and incestuous forums that were my only other hobby outlet at the time.

I'm very grateful to my readers here. In the time I’ve been posting I've met some awesome people and been able to share my hobby with people all over the world, and hear back from them.. this internets.. wonderful thing.

I’d like to think I’d still be making models and occasionally playing games without the blog.. but ya know I think it’s doubtful. I think one of those times life gets busy and work gets hectic (like now) would have seen me put some stuff away and not get it out again for a few years, as has happened before in my hobby life.

So thank you to all of you who read the odd post here, and thank you especially to anyone who has found content interesting and taken the time out of their lives to say so.

I’ve tried to “give back” over the years by talking about what I do and trying to write tutorials or make videos, and I stand by that, so this is a good opportunity to ask me for any tutes or vids on anything you've seen me do that I either haven't explained or haven't explained well enough. just let me know and I'll make it a topic, either in the comments or email me.

So, six years.. time for a “Top five most hits articles” post? I think so..

So, I’m going to cheat this a bit and count those top two as one.. and wow, people really want to convert their Stormtalons huh? I have some video shot for how I did this, so might get that edited at some point into a post.. in the meantime, here are some quicklinks to those posts.. (click the pics)

  

I didn't think this would be so popular..

This was done on a whim as I came into possession of the two figs from the DV set- the libby and the Chappie. I’ve still to find a use for the chappie, though he may become an inquisitor.

I guess this guy is often searched for as people are checking out the Codex entry and not seeing a model…

This may be “legacy” hit, this was a very popular post at the time of writing..

Who doesn't want to make the most out of their Russ kit?

So there we have it, six years on, still going. I’m getting finished with the BA soon and now that the Massive Voodoo competition entries have closed I might be able to post my entries.. I’ll check on that, I think they must appear on the MV site first.. (nothing exciting or bespoke, I just threw what I'd already painted into their comp..) then its either white scars or WW2 yanks, Haven't decided yet…

A little Progress…

I did say things might be slow for a while, yeah? Sorry about that. I think the best change I can make right now is a single weekly post, most likely on a Tuesday, that should better reflect the scale of progress being made on the hobby front; between and increased workload, an entertaining game and the weather picking up so being more active, it hasn't left a lot of time, however some progress on the BA assault squad featured here has been made..

In the interests of keeping you interested I thought I’d show you what’s been happening to these chaps, that way the few posts it takes me to finish them might be a useful guide of some kind to how I go about things.

After getting the airbrushed segment done; which is always the largest colour on the model – for these guys its the red of their armour, for the Kroot I did a few years back it was their skin – I progress to dealing with the rest of the model. I put a basecoat of a mid-tone of the colour I ultimately want on every part that’s a different colour. you can see these flat colour above, for the record: Iyanden darksun, VMC Black, Reaper tarnished steel, VGC Cayman green, dheneb stone, Andrea minis flesh set base and a reaper ancient bronze.

I then use selective washes often several layers of thin washes to darken the tones and create shadows for each colour, again for the record I used: Gryphonne sepia, Ogryn flesh, army painter strong tone, VMC black, and citadel brown ink.

the next step will be highlighting each colour to make it pop, then move on to detail, transfers and weathering. I’ll keep the pictures coming and hopefully you'll get a good idea of my current “tabletop” paint job process.

After that I’ve another squad to do (ten is a bit too dull of a batch size for this process – 5 is just right)  and the flyer, then onto another project.. whether that’s finishing up the guard units, painting some Americans and starting in on a planned white scars battle group.. time will tell..

Painting red – with the help of an airbrush

I’ve changed the way I’m doing a lot of this batch painting and most of it is because I wanted to use the airbrush more .

I am quite adept with it, and use it a lot for vehicles, hardly touching a brush now for them, but when it comes to minis I’m still really only using it for basecoats. this strikes me as a bit daft as when I'm doing 10 marines at once whoa re largely a single colour it strikes me i could be more efficient than just slapping down 1 colour then reaching for a brush.. so here goes.

What you see above here is a batch of assault marines in blood angels livery about to be panted, and my test fig for the paint technique outlined below.

The paints used – the blood tried from reaper master series, two of the secret weapon washes and a white – using reaper cos its the one i have and good old iraqui sand, its my goto “bone” colour.

the models have already had a basecoat of bloodstain red, then a nadiral (opposite of zenithal) spray with bloodstain mixed with black to give some shadow from below.

I then highlight the areas that are catching the light with a mix of white and iraqui sand

this gets an overspray of a semi transluscent layer of carnage red allowing the underpainting to lighten the red.

Seal with Klear (or any other gloss coat) for an easier time with the..

First wash – these two mixed 50/50

Repeat….

The just the black in the key areas like grils, vents etc.. and voilla – you’re ready to paint details and other colours.

Here he is next to the test fig – who is a tad bluer, this is for two reasons, firstly his highlights were pure white, no bone, secondly he has a mattecoat on so I could gauge the true colour of a finished min without the shine of the klear and washes showing.. and mattecoats are always a bit blue, vallejos especially so. I'll use dullcoat for the rest (and give him a blast once done)

I don't know if anyone else would bother with the rigmarole of this , rather than just paint mephiston, wash with agrax, highlight by drybrushing, but it pleases me, and I stand by the results. this lot were done in about 2 hours so its fast too once you get the hang of swapping colours in the airbrush.

Anyway, feedback always welcome, I’ll get to work with the brush on these chaps when opportunity presents, and show results once I have them :)

Distractions

So I’ve had a lovely Easter break, lots of activity lots of outdoorsy stuff.. not so much modelling and painting.

To the point that I don't have the customary weeks of scheduled posts.. things might get patchy for a while hereabouts.

I've a lot stacked up on the to do list, and I'm not stopping anytime soon, I just got a wee bit distracted.

I do have a post for later in the week on how I'm doing red these days, and after that..

I’ll probably commit to at least a Monday “I'm doing this” and hopefully also a Friday “I've finished these” but we’ll have to see as work gets busy at this time of year looking at closedown and final projects and end of year shows etc.

Bit frustrating to be making a post like this warning of possibly fewer posts to come as so far this year I've managed a regular two posts a week, but hey ho, these things happen.

On the PC gaming front, anyone who ever loved Baldurs gate and has a PC they can game on could do worse than check out Pillars of Eternity. I’m about 5 hours in and having a lot of fun.

So there we have it, expect a little more intermittent and less prepared content going forward, unless it rains a lot, then it’ll be okay :)

Lemartes

Quicky paint job so that my DC have a leader if they ever need one. Plus, it’s a wicked cool model so I had to.

  

Some very successful areas on this chap, some needing more work, but he’ll do :) I doubt he’ll see much play but I “needed” him :)

Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest No2

This one is my kitbash and will accompany the scouts. (Yep, scouts with FNP. Trust me.)

 

If I remember correctly its a Black templar body from a bitz site, the pack and gauntlet from the command squad kit – with the bottled snipped off that torso, rest is from the BA tac squad.

Quite pleased with him now he’s painted, and working on a decent way to do white was fun (it’ll be important for me soon too)

Inferno pistol and melta bomb means he’s a threat to almost anything and the extra survivability he gives the scouts in the backfield means he’s quite a pest :)

Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest No1

This is the stock GW model, lovely sculpt even if the weapon options aren't well represented, he’d still convert up well imo.

 

Nothing remarkable about him really, just a standard paint job – the blood in the chalice is maybe worth a mention – a big old blood of the GW technical blood for the blood god, it shrank a little as it dried but that's actually okay for blood sloshing about, it’s more remarkable that the priest hasn't spilled any :)

As usual I'm finding blending gold easier than silver, weird really as this seems to apply for me whether I’m using NMM or TMM.

There we have him. one more of these, Lamertes, and some assault troops and a stormraven and I'm “done” with the BA contingent. There are some models I can’t share online at the moment as I’ve entered them in the massive voodoo competition, mostly for giggles as the competition level there is ridiculously high. I will however prepare the posts to appear after the closing date.

It’s the easter hols, but it wont be a post-a-day holiday as I’ve quite a lot on – expect the usual friday/monday updates.